Vermont has officially stopped enforcing the state’s GMO labeling law following President Barack Obama’s signing Friday of the federal law that preempts the measure.

In a statement today, state Attorney General William Sorrell credited Vermont’s law with forcing the federal government to act on GMO labeling and called on companies that changed their labels to comply with the state’s law to retain those easy-to-understand disclosures “because it is the right thing to do.”

“[M]y office intends to take an active role as the labeling fight shifts from the legislative process in Congress to the regulatory process at the USDA,” Sorrell said. “We will work hard to give consumers the same access to information, in plain English, that they had under Vermont’s law.”